This guide is intended to show what fish bite on what bait, in what locations, and with what risk of losing lures/rods/catches due to size/strength issues. It includes the most recent data from Grand-Blue and Final Fishing, with maps and illustrations from Vana'diel Atlas (FFXI-Atlas) and Blue Elephant Brigade, with some original additions.

This guide is not intended to replace any of these resources. You are encouraged to support these sites and help keep them up-to-date. Any errors can be posted in line below and will be corrected in future versions.

Please note that this is not commercial, for sale, etc. I used pics from several places (see credits in guide) and all copyrights etc stay with the owners. If anyone associated with any of the sites (ffxi-atlas, BEB, etc) wants me to remove any pics, please send me a message and I'll do so.

Each cell in the catch table will either be blank or will have two letter ranges. If blank, the fish doesn't bite on that bait.

If two ranges, the first represents the minimum rod category needed to avoid the rod breaking. K is strongest (Ebisu), A weakest (Yew/Willow). Rods strengths are listed in the footer of every page.

The second range is the minimum rod category needed to avoid the line snapping (losing lures). Usually this is the same as the first strength, but not always.

The reason there are ranges is that in most cases, the exact strengths needed aren't known.

Example (Kayabaligi): A-G / H-K

The minimum rod strength needed to avoid rod breaking is A-G. You may get away with Yew/Willow (A), but if you want to be safe, stick with Halcyon (G). You need at least H-K though to avoid a line snap, so your Halcyon would be safe but not the Sinking Minnow on the end of it. To protect your lure (and catch), you need at least a Mithran (H), but perhaps as much as an Ebisu (K).

With time, we should be able to say Kayabaligi is E/J (for example). We just don't know exactly yet.

A word about (!!!) rods

Rods with (!!!) after them are large fish rods. If you target fish with one "!" while using these rods, you may lose some of them to "too small" messages.

I was asked below to explain a bit more how this guide is laid out. This is a very long explanation, so unless you are looking at a copy of the guide and want to know exactly how it works, I'd skip this post.

...

Here is a quick guide to the layout of version 1.0.0 of the Atlas. I'll put something nicer together later, but I'm not physically able to do so for at least a few weeks. So this'll have to do.

Typical Page: Jugner Forest (Springs) [page 57]

I'll walk you through this entire page starting at the top.

The name of the area appears in three places: centered at the top of the page, and vertically on the left and right. The vertical names allow you to thumb through if you have printed out the guide and bound it.

Below the centered title, there is a map and the screenshot. If the area is reported to have different fish in different locations, the map will include circles/ovals with labels so that you can identify the different locations. Also, if the area spans multiple maps then they have been combined into a single map for use in the guide. As a result of this, the "combination maps" will generally not have the number/letter grids like the simple maps. Finally, if the area spans multiple maps that overlay one another (due to stairs/drops) than they have been combined in perspective views, with vertical lines showing how the maps connect. Blue lines represent two-way connections, while red lines indicate one-way connections (usually drops).

Areas with multiple fishing locations often span multiple pages in the guide. In this case, the area name top and center will include in parentheses the locations covered on that page. Also, areas in the same city or on the same local ferry service (Carpenters Landing, Bibiki Bay) are grouped together.

The screenshot next to the maps in the top right are taken (with great appreciation) from the Blue Elephant Brigade web site. Some of the ferry areas do not include screenshots, and some of the existing screenshots do not show the fishing locations... these I may change in time.

Below the screenshot is the "Getting there" section. This tells the type of area and its region. Connections are also listed, with a distinction made between connections that must be made on foot and those that can be made more quickly, such as by chocobo. If there is a connection to an area with a teleport crystal I've tried to mention this, but this is not done consistently.

Below the "Getting there" section is the "Safety information" section. Basically, this lets you know whether you're going to get aggroed if you go there. Information about notorious monsters is sketchy, so always assume that an unknown mob might be notorious and check it's strength to be sure.

Then come the catch tables. There's one catch table for each fishing location with unique catches. Locations in the same area with the same catches are in the same table.

Let's break down to catch tables on page 57:

In the top left is the word "Crystalwater"... this refers to Crystalwater spring. Thus, this catch table only applies to the location identified as Crystalwater spring in the map at the top (J-9).

Reading down the left side in the first column, there are three fish listed. The first is "! Crayfish (7:12)", and the cell is not highlighted. The single exclamation point means that this is a small fish, and that only one exclamation point will appear when you are told that something had bitten the hook. Scanning the fish and the number of exclamation points in front of the names is a quick way to help you understand what fish you might have caught on your line when you get a bite. Note though that you might also catch any item or mob (see below) in addition to whatever is in the catch table.

So, "! Crayfish (7:12)" means that you might catch a crayfish in Crystalwater spring, and if you do it will only have one exclamation point when you catch it. The "7:12" means that the skill cap for a crayfish is 7 (you can't reach fishing skill 8 catching crayfish), and there are 12 crayfish in a single stack. Thus, every fish will have in parentheses after its name a number between zero and 100 followed by a ":" followed by either the number 1 or 12. In some cases, the skill cap is unknown; in these cases "?" replaces skill number.

The fact that the Crayfish cell is not highlighted means that there is no known bait that targets only crayfish (and none of the other fish in the catch table). Reading across to the right, the next three columns are all empty. This means that crayfish will not bite on any of the baits (frog lure, shell bug, giant shell bug, insect ball, lizard/worm lure, meatball, minnow/sinking minnow, trout ball) listed at the tops of the columns. The far right column (headed: little worm, peeled crayfish, slice of carp) contains the following text: "A-D/A-D".

These letters in the main cells of the catch table are probably the least intuitive part of this layout. It helps to understand that some fishing rods are stronger than others, and some fish are stronger than others, and that if a fish is stronger than the rod you are using, there are two different ways you may lose more than the fish (especially assuming you have sufficient skill). If the fish is much stronger than the rod, the rod may break. If the fish is only a very little bit stronger than the rod, the rod may survive but your line may snap. Line snaps are a euphemism for losing your bait. If you are using live bait, this may not be much of a concern. If you are using a lure (especially an expensive one), this may concern you very much.

So as a fisherman, especially one without a Lu Shang or Ebisu fishing rod, often wants to know whether he/she is risking the rod/lure he/she is using in a given location. The "A-D/A-D" is the answer.

The letter or letters before the "/" is how strong a rod you have to use if you want to make sure that the rod will not be broken by this fish. The letter or letters after the "/" is how strong a rod you have to use if you want to make sure that you do not lose your lure to this fish (due to a line snap). The list of each letter and the rods that corresponds to it are listed in the footer at the bottom of page.

In this example, "A-D” tells you that the minimum-strength rod you can use to catch a crayfish with no risk of the crayfish breaking the rod, is a rod of strength between "A” and “D”. What are these? "A" rods are Willow and Yew. The only "D" rod is the carbon fiber fishing rod. In between these are bamboo, fastwater, tarutaru, and glass fiber fishing rods. Which of these rods can a crayfish break? At this point we don't know. Hence the range. If somebody finds out that a crayfish can in fact break a Willow or Yew fishing rod, we would have to amend the crayfish rating to be "B-D".

It's all kind of complicated I suppose, but the point is that for most fish (especially the small ones) we don't really know exactly which of the smaller rods can be broken by them. So we give a range of possibly safe minimum-strength rods, and you can use them at your own risk.

OK, back to the catch table. "A-D/A-D" means that a Willow/Yew rod may be safe along with its lure, but a carbon fiber fishing rod is definitely safe along with its lure. However, this last column also shows that if you use little worms/peeled crayfish/slice of carp at your bait at the Crystalwater spring, then "! Dark Bass (33:12)" may also bite. Dark Bass has a single exclamation point, so you will not be able to tell it from crayfish on that basis. Further, the rating for dark bass is "C-D/A-B". This means... well heck this is a bad example, I think this one is backwards. It should be "A-B/C-D"... the first part is never bigger than the second part. Anyway, what should catch your eye is the "C-D"... it tells you that using an A or B rod here means you may lose something. So at the minimum, you would want to use a glass fiber fishing rod with this bait. If you want to play it a little safer, you would use carbon fiber fishing rod.

Now, if it was the dark Bass that you wanted to catch, you would notice in the left column that dark Bass is highlighted yellow. This means you can target this fish directly. Read over to the right until you find the yellow highlighted cell. In this case, it is the one under insect ball, etc.. Using any of these baits will avoid bites from the other fish (crayfish, red terrapin) in this location.

The catch table for Maiden's spring is next, and follows the same logic.

At the bottom of the page are the "Rare Catches" and "Catchable Mobs" sections. The rare catches are items in certain indiscriminate fish. They will not usually be caught, but may be from time to time. For this reason, if you want to be very safe you should add them to the list of fish that may bite on the bait you are using when trying to determine if your rod or lure are at risk. The catchable mobs are always "!!!" and may also bite on any bait. I don't have any information about whether mobs can break certain rods, so the only thing to note here is the fighting level of the mob. Some of them may eat you for lunch.

That is pretty much it. The way I personally use the guide is to flip to whatever area I am in, look to see what fish can be caught there, use the tables to decide what bait to use, and then use the tables while fishing to help the predict and better learn the behavior of whatever may be on the other end of the line. I also look at the safety information and catchable mobs to decide whether it is safe to fish.

An impressive undertaking. Thank you for putting this together for those of us who need to print things out so we can reference while we play. And thank you for those many other references that you have put together!

Good question, not already answered. A yellow cell indicates that the given fish can be specifically targeted with the given bait. The name of the fish is also highlighted yellow. This way you can quickly glance and see if there is a way to target the fish you want.

Sidenote: I've probably got about 30 to 40 updates so far. It may be a few weeks before I update the document, but I will try to at least update one of the posts above in the meantime.

Very nice work, indeed. One suggestion would be to have a brief explanation of the layout used. I was lost looking at it till I read your explanations here. Otherwise very excellent guide.

Thanks very much, it's appreciated.

I took one of my empty posts above and did a detailed walk-through of page 57.

Then I noticed the word "brief" in your suggestion.

Oh well.

Here is the really brief version:

Find your location on page 3, or use the bookmarks/names on the side of the pages to flip to the area that you are in or want to go to. Then have a look at the fish you can catch in this area (bearing in mind the skill caps). Pick the lure that best isolates the fish you want, making sure that none of the fish that bite on this bait (and optionally none of the rare catches) will break your rod or snap your line.

I really know how much work this has been. I have downloaded the file and hope that it is ok if I take inspiration from this guide when working on finalfishing.com.

As you may have noticed I haven't done a lot of updating lately (do to holiday and lack of internet) but I will be back tomorrow with a new update and I hope you will use it and update the guide you have made.

KidA/XXX - please feel free to take anything you think can improve these tools we all use. And thanks again for bringing the fishing database back to life.

You'll probably notice some minor differences in the definitions of the fishing locations, especially around Jugner Forest. I have no real data of my own to back this up, so take it for what it is worth (I'm a bit dubious). The info comes from Grand-Blue, and some of that info is excellently detailed.

The rod strength thing with the letters is based on a couple of unproven assumptions:

1) Fish and rods work on a simple linear scale. If fish A breaks rod 1 but fish B does not, then fish A will always be able to break any rod that fish B can, etc.

2) The old Oksana/Titanictus fishing rod strength numbers (5.5 etc) are accurate. I substituted letters for numbers, probably foolishly, for a good reason I can't recall offhand.

3) Line breaks are essentially minor rod breaks and work on the same linear strength theory as #1 above.

What's missing:

1) Any consideration for that fact that not all big fish rods are created equal. Nothing lets you know that a mithran is more friendly to small fish than a composite, while still losing some.

2) Time sensitivity of different fish. For example, crescent fish supposedly bite better/only during (waning?) crescent moons. There are times terrapins will bite better etc.

3) Relative bite rates. Just because you can isolate a fish somewhere doesn't mean that it will bite every cast. I'd love to have some graphic that lets you know, generally, that 75% of casts with a sabiki rig in Mhaura will snag yellow globes, or whatever.

4) Indices by fish and rod. Especially fish.

5) Better info on fishing supplies. If there is bait etc in a location it should be mentioned on that page. Also, the ferries should be put together under the heading "Ferry:"

I was driving to work this morning, just zoning out, listening to my radio, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a BLACK MAGE TARU HEALING ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD! For one split second, I thought "Omg he needs to get out of there he's gonna aggro... what a noob."

Pls, re-post or update the link/site this guide can be found at. All links contained within this post lead to "page not found." I would realy like to get this guide based on the responses provided by the community here.